There are also a few novelty weapons that can be used as professional tools, such as [Gouging Pick]. Unlike professional tools, they DO have an associated weapon skill (in this case, the axe skill) and can be used with special abilites that require weapons. However, they are almost all poor quality and not generally actually used as weapons. Like professional tools, they merely need to be in your inventory, not equipped, to be used for a profession.

Hunters can auto-shoot with a bow, crossbow, or a gun. Before Mists of Pandaria, rogues and warriors could also use the Shoot ability.

Bows, crossbows, and guns tend to be slower than thrown weapons and do more damage per shot.
For rogues and warriors, who may use ranged weapons to pullmobs, a single shot will generally do more damage than a single throw. With Mists of Pandaria, warriors and rogues can no longer use ranged weapons. To accommodate, both classes learn a throw spell which does not require any thrown item to use. Warriors have since[citation needed] lost the throw spell, however the cooldown of Heroic Throw has been reduced from 30 seconds to 6 seconds.

Hunters should always use a non-thrown ranged weapon as they do not have any special abilities pertaining to thrown weapons and will do far more dps with a bow, crossbow or gun. Hunters should take into consider their racial specialization when deciding on a ranged weapon. Hunters should be given priority over other ranged-weapon using classes as for these classes it is only a stat bonus--with the exception of tank-stat weapons that have defense rating, avoidance, and high stamina. The common scenario of warriors and rogues rolling ranged weapons over a hunter (and the opposite: hunters rolling melee weapons) may have influenced the decision to make bows/crossbows/guns hunter-only. Hunters should carry a decent-quality backup weapon because they will do little dps without it.

They have an infinite use. In the past they sustained durability damage every time they were used, and had to be repaired or replaced periodically.

A single equipped thrown weapon takes no additional storage.

Thrown weapons tend to be fast, but always manually thrown, and do lighter damage per throw.

Rogues and warriors can generally throw faster than they can shoot.

PvP Rogues should always equip a thrown weapon rather than a bow, et all, for their ability deadly throw, useful against fleeing targets.

For Warriors that have not learned Heroic Throw, using a thrown or ranged weapon can be to pull mobs at a distance or effectively perform a Line of Sight pull. Be careful though, as this generates low threat and only generates threat on one mob. Priest and Druids should be especially careful as even a single Prayer of Mending (initial cast, i.e. if it wore off before the pull or it was cast late), Shield, or HoT can pull off a warrior that has only the small amount of threat from throw or a ranged weapon.

Unlike any other weapon item, a wand does not do weapon damage, but only magical damage.

Resistances to types of magic become significant, and these caster classes may choose to carry multiple wands with different damage types.

Though magic, this is not casting a spell; the caster's spell casting buffs do not affect the wand's damage.

Wands use the "shoot" action and the wand skill. While shooting it will keep using the wand every time it becomes available.

Using shoot with a wand will trigger a global cooldown each time the wand is activated.

Canceling the shoot sequence can be accomplished by moving, jumping, or pressing the shoot button again between cooldowns, which requires quick timing and is generally unpreferred if needing to stop quickly.

Wands have higher DPS than other weapons of the same item level, but this is misleading as no stat or attribute increases their damage. They always do less damage than spellcasting.

Almost any class except rogues, death knights, and paladins can use staves.

Rogues are the only class in the game that cannot use any two-handed weapon (except fishing poles).

They start with the ability to dual wield, which mitigates the disadvantage.

In earlier times, you had to visit Weapon Masters to gain weapon proficiency. It was generally advantageous to train in every weapon proficiency available to you, when you could afford to. Then, you had more options as weapons became available.

Prior to Cataclysm, each particular weapon proficiency had a weapon skill associated with it. You only gained skill with a type of weapon by wielding and using it. You could check your weapon skills by pressing 'k' to pop open the skills window. Any weapon skill that you had not trained yet could be learned from any Weapon Master in any capital city.